


Red

by ThoughtfulBreadPolice



Series: November Flash Bingo 2019 [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Flash Fic, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 20:22:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21277163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtfulBreadPolice/pseuds/ThoughtfulBreadPolice
Summary: He is not Natasha, full of a polluted hope that one day he can wipe his ledger clean.001-Red-Gen





	Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [petroltogo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/petroltogo/gifts).

> TSBFlash  
001 - Red - gen

Tony is born screaming, red into the world, and for a time, that is all he knows. He screams and he cries and his skin is bright red from doing so. He hears screaming that isn't his own and screams louder for the fear of the sounds that aren't his. 

He screams for a mother to hold him and a father to keep him safe in this new place that is so different, so odd and far too much. His mother never comes and his father screams with him, at him and it hurts. Though he doesn't know why. Not yet. 

Tony is three and he has learned to be quiet. But the red never goes away. Not really. It is burning palms, split lips and bruised skin, and Tony decides he hates the color red. Hates it like he hates Howard and hates it just like he hates how scared he is to say so. 

Mr. Jarvis says he is too young to hate. But then, Mr. Jarvis likes the color red, and so Tony thinks Mr. Jarvis doesn't actually know everything after all. 

Howard teaches him hate, Maria teaches him indifference, and they are lessons that Tony will never forget. 

Tony hates the color red. Hates it because they are the color of the flowers placed on Mr. Jarvis' grave, and he wonders if it's selfish to be angry at him for dieing. For leaving him alone with a cruel father and an absent mother. 

Tony decides that he is selfish for feeling this way, but he is indifferent to the knowledge, and he hates that too. 

The world washes away in a haze of red that is hate and indifference and selfishness. 

Tony does not care. Can't because he knows he would shatter into millions of tiny, jagged pieces that he couldn't hope to pick up and put back together. He is not humpty dumpty, and there is no one here to save him. 

There are more red flowers. But they are on the graves of people he has to pretend he cared about, and he is indifferent as he pretends to be sad, and lets the rain wash down his face in a mockery of the sadness he is supposed to feel but doesn't. 

No one sees the red he keeps behind pinched lips and clenched teeth. 

The world returns to a haze of red but this time there is no hate or indifference or selfishness. Tony is far to numb for any of that. 

He's forced out of the haze his life has become to the crack of gunfire and the splattered blood of soldiers that were too young to die. And why must it always be red? 

Then it is explosions and fire and a burning, aching agony that is red red red, the physical manifestation of the color he's always seen but has never been able to out run. 

Later Tony thinks, after water, and electricity and too much red, he never will. 

After, Yinsen and heat so hot that it's cold, and burning sand stained red by the setting of the sun he hasn't seen in what feels like years, after Obie, and everything that follows, Tony acknowledges that he's not so indifferent after all. He shatters. 

He shatters. Palladium, and worm holes in the sky. 

He shatters. Ultron, and Wanda who is red red red, and Steve. 

And he aches. He aches because no matter what he does, no matter how hard he tries, it will never be enough. 

The red of his life will never leave him. Punishment for his burning hate and indifference. Punishment for his selfish indulgence and the ignorance that cost so many lives. 

Tony knows his sins. Knows with utter clarity that there will be no forgiveness for the things he has done. The things he has caused. 

He is not Natasha. Full of a polluted hope that one day the red in his ledger will be wiped clean. That the armor he wears, red and gleaming bright will stop bleeding into the cracks of his battered soul. 

Tony knows that this is the cost of an accumulation of a life drenched in red, and he knows that there will be no salvation. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Keep checking back for more! I'll be adding little filets throughout November!!!


End file.
